The Heather Moon

by King, Susan

  Or seemed so. The secret knowledge that she had, indeed, exchanged the precious Romany token of shared wounds, shared blood, with a handsome, desirable man made her heart leap within her. She scowled at her own fancy and folded her arms as she watched her Romany kin around the bonfire.

  The music swirled again, and more people came forward to expand the circle of dancers. Tamsin tapped a foot rhythmically in the grass, accustomed to being on the outside of such festivities.

  "Join them, girl," a voice said behind her. She turned to see her grandfather approach. He looked at her with solemn black eyes above his long nose and gray beard. "Go on, join them."

  "Kek, no, Grandfather," she said in Romany. "They will not invite me to dance with them. They think I am wafri bak, bad luck, especially at a wedding feast. You know they think I am born under a curse." She half smiled to show him that their opinion did not hurt her. But the truth was not so simple.

  "If dancing would bring you joy, I will tell them they must invite you," he said gruffly. He stood beside her, scarcely taller than she was, wide-shouldered and muscular, a strong, dark man who radiated an earthy sort of power.

  She shook her head. "No one wants to touch my hand in the circle dance," she said. "Many of them—especially those from the other Romany band—think that I carry ill fortune and will thus give it to them. Some of them even think I possess the evil eye because of my light-colored eyes."

  "They are idiots," he said bluntly. "I called you Tchalai myself, for your eyes that remind me of stars. Though your father gave you a Scottish name, after his own kin." He shrugged. "You know that the Faws have never believed that you are cursed, Tchalai."

  "I know, Grandfather," she said. "I thank you."

  He grunted. "Tchalai, I have thought about the news you brought. We want no trouble with the gadjo, nor will I aid any man who mistreats my granddaughter or her father. We will break camp and leave after the wedding, so that no one will find us."

  "I am glad," she said. "My father does not want to bring harm to your people. He only agreed so that I could leave that English castle."

  John Faw nodded. "Your father is a good man, for a gadjo. Though he has not found you a husband." He slid her a glance.

  She sighed. "He has tried, Grandfather."

  "I know of a man who wants you."

  Her heart thumped fast. The face that came to her mind belonged to William Scott. She frowned. Her grandfather did not even know the laird of Rookhope; and she was glad he did not know what had happened between her and that laird. She must be very tired from the ordeal of the last few days, she thought, to let such foolish thoughts distract her.

  "What man?" she asked.

  He pointed with his thumb toward the bonfire. A man stood on the opposite side of the fire, gaunt but handsome, with a large black mustache. "That is the groom's uncle, Baptiste Lallo. He wants three horses in trade for the two fine ones he brought with him. Or he says he will trade them for you as his wife."

  Tamsin gasped. "You would trade me for horses?"

  "I have not accepted his offer. I am thinking about it."

  "But Grandfather, Baptiste Lallo's father argued with you, and split his band away from the Faw band. All Romany know that the Lallo group are thieves and rascals in England, where they roam! How can you expect me to go with him? How can you sell me to him, like a horse?"

  He frowned. "Baptiste's father was a renegade, true, but Baptiste is sincere in his wish for peace with the Faw band. And he is willing to take you, girl. He wants you."

  She glanced up, and saw Baptiste looking at her across the clearing. He smiled, his eyes gleaming black points. "But I do not want him!" she said.

  "You need a strong Romany husband to tame the unseemly boldness you have learned at your father's knee," John Faw said. "I am thinking it was not good to let you go with Archie Armstrong those years ago. You are not the modest Romany girl you should be. But a Rom husband will teach you to behave with respect and modesty. I do not want you to become the unmarried girl among our people. It is not a fitting state for the granddaughter of the leader."

  "I have decided not to wed." She folded her arms.

  "Unless you marry, you will grow old scrubbing cooking pots and tending children who are not your own. Your father has not found you a husband, as was his duty. I will now do my best for you."

  "Please, not that man," she said.

  "This feast, this happy celebration tonight, could be for you, Tchalai. I will give you gold and silver and many fine things when you wed. We will dance for a week."

  "I do not want to marry that man!" she cried.

  "It is time to heal old differences among our two Romany bands. And I have not yet decided the matter," her grandfather added.

  Tamsin bit her lip anxiously. Across the clearing, Baptiste Lallo nodded to her. "Grandfather," she pleaded. "The Lallo band has made a bad name in England for all the Romany."

  "That was his father," John Faw said. "I will ask others what they know of Baptiste. And I will consider what you have said. But you will never have a marriage celebration unless we do something for you soon."

  Tamsin listened while she watched the Romany whirl about the fire. The pace seemed to quicken her heart, but she felt the burden of her lack of welcome. Suddenly she knew that she did not belong here, where she could be sold to a man for a few horses.

  She rubbed her left wrist, feeling the sting of the small cut there. The irony of that tiny wound sliced deep into her heart. She had a marriage, she wanted to shout at her grandfather. Fate had found her a husband, had bonded her to him. He was more kind, more handsome, more skilled and daring than any man John Faw or Archie could find for her.

  But in truth, she had only a sad mockery of a marriage, a sacred token made without meaning, without love. No man would truly love her in her life, would willingly marry her, unless he had been paid well to do it.

  Despite her proud protests against marriage, she was deeply lonely. That realization crashed through her, heavy and hurting. She too wanted someone with whom to share the small joys and difficulties of each day, each year. Her small hand and mixed heritage did not make her any less a woman, or give her fewer needs and desires.

  She stifled a sob, turned on her heel, and fled into the night. Her grandfather called out to her, but she did not glance back. Behind her, the dancers' laughter and the music echoed toward the stars.

  She ran on through thick grass, her legs pumping. The wind lifted her hair, ruffled her skirt. All she wanted was to put her own thoughts and anguish behind her if she could. All she wanted was a measure of peace and love in her life.

  The full moon, slung high and opalescent in the darkness, lured her up a long slope. The incline was dense with heather, and she slowed to walk through the deep, tufted plants. The tiny blooms were thick and fragrant in the night air, and she broke off a tough stem, covered with fragile bells. She inhaled their sweet, light, calming perfume, and walked onward.

  The music faded behind her, replaced by the whisper of the wind and the burble of a stream that cut a tumbling path down the hill. The fragrance of the heather, the cool moonlight, and the steady rush of the burn soothed her emotions as she ascended the slope.

  The Romany would not provide the refuge for her that she had hoped. If she disobeyed her grandfather, she could not easily stay with them. But she could not return to her father's home for fear of what the English lord would do.

  Besides, she thought, Archie's newfound adulation for William Scott made her feel that, for the first time in her life, she could not rely on Archie for complete support.

  He wanted her to marry Rookhope. That thought made her laugh, soft and bitter, as she stood knee-deep in the moonlit heather. The last place she could go for refuge was to Rookhope Tower itself, where another dungeon awaited her.

  The breeze rippled through her hair as she walked with no clear idea where she went, lost in her thoughts. The Romany never wandered aimlessly, and always knew their next d
estination. Tamsin did not.

  But then, she reminded herself, she was only half Romany, just as she was half Scot. Now she had begun to wonder, for the first time in her life, where she truly belonged. The answer did not come to her.

  At the top of the hill, the wind swept over the peak, stirring her skirt, whipping her hair across her face. She spun to look down over the dark moor below. Tents and wagons dotted the open field, and the bonfire glowed like a hot yellow star fallen to earth.

  She thought about her grandfather's words, remembered his criticism of Archie. Her father loved her well, she knew, but he had raised his daughter to be a reiver, not necessarily a lady. She had been given a book education by a dull, kind male tutor, so that she could write and read, even knew French and Latin. But she could not run a household as well as she could play at the cards or coax a flock of sheep from a moonlit pasture.

  From the Romany, she had learned a love of freedom that had spoiled her for life in a restrictive manor household. Nature, to her, was teacher, shelter, provider, and a source of constant delight and wonder. The Romany had taught her tricks of cleverness, sleight-of-hand, and how the nuances of the voice could make a lie bright as truth. She could cook hedgehog stew, steal chickens, and weave baskets. She knew how to decipher the map of life in an open palm, could read messages in the picture cards, and knew how to convince people to part with good silver for both services.

  But she did not belong fully in either culture. Did a man exist somewhere who could love her for what she was, who could admire what she knew of two cultures? Did a man exist who could love her with her flaws?

  William Scott came insistently to her thoughts. She closed her eyes, shook her head to dispel his image.

  She walked up the hill, distracted by her thoughts. The stream to her right sounded like soft thunder, and the wind buffeted her as she stepped onto the crest of the hill. The thunder was even louder here, an insistent pounding. She turned. And gasped.

  A few feet away, a horse rose over the rim of the hill like a dark vision. The animal bolted toward her, a demon in the night, dark and strong. A rider hunkered low on its back, armor glimmering in the cool moonlight.

  Tamsin screamed and stepped back, stumbling as the horse bore down upon her. Behind it, another horse soared over the hilltop, and then a third, rising in the night like dark ghosts. The fierce sound of beating hooves mingled with the howling wind.

  "Out of the way!" someone shouted. "Move!"

  Her foot struck a rock and she fell hard, slamming to the earth. She scrambled to get out of the path of the oncoming horses, instinctively raising her arm in front of her face.

  The front rider shouted again as his horse streamed past, leaping over her as she crawled free. An iron hoof caught her a glancing, painful blow in the thigh. She half dragged herself away and curled in terror as the other horses thundered by within inches of her.

  The first rider circled and came back, drawing the horse to a restive halt beside her. As Tamsin struggled to her knees, the horse whickered and bucked. The rider spoke calmly, then looked down at Tamsin.

  "Are you hurt?" he asked.

  She looked up. He was silhouetted against the white moon, and at first she saw only the massive horse and its wide-shouldered rider. The man's steel helmet glimmered in the low light. Beyond him, the other riders turned and waited.

  She tried to stand, but her injured leg buckled under her. She half collapsed with a low cry.

  The man leaned down, held out a gauntleted hand, and swore.

  "Tamsin Armstrong," she heard William Scott growl, "what the devil are you doing out here?"

  Chapter 9

  "...wretched, wily wandering vagabonds calling and naming them selues Egiptians... delyting... with the strangeness of the attyre of their heades, and practising paulmistrie to such as would know their fortunes."

  —Thomas Harmon, Caveat of Common Cursetors, 1567

  William stared down at Tamsin in the moonlight. She plainly gaped at him. Then she whirled and took a step. Her leg seemed to collapse under her, and she half fell to the ground.

  "You canna walk far like that. Come up here." William leaned toward her and held out his hand, intending to lift her up behind him. The bay, already agitated by the sudden appearance of the girl in his path, sidled nervously under him. William tightened his knees to control his mount, and stretched to grab the girl's arm. "Come up, and hurry. They'll be after us soon!"

  "Who?" She pulled, resisting, as he tried to haul her up.

  He glanced over his shoulder. The steady beat of horse hooves, an incessant, faint sound that he had heard for too long now, grew even louder. "Up, lass, or be trampled for certain!"

  Bless her for quick wits, he thought. She gasped at the increasing thunder of approaching horses and reached up in the darkness. William lifted her, his fingers closing over her left forearm. Her feet cleared the ground, and she rested one bare foot on his leg to vault neatly into position behind him, despite her injured leg. She wrapped her arms tightly around his waist.

  "Nicely done," he commented, and let the bay launch forward. He hunkered low, and felt the girl do the same, her arms secure about him. Ahead, his comrades—his cousins Jock and Sandie Scott, who were in turn cousins to each other—galloped ahead.

  A backward glance showed their pursuers clearing the rim of the hill. The riders' armor and weapons caught a cruel, cold gleam in the moonlight. William urged the bay ahead, down the long, gradual slope toward the moor. As the ground leveled, William gave the bay full rein, and they overtook his cousins within moments.

  One of William's cousins whooped as the bay passed him, and both spurred their horses to a faster gallop, barely managing to catch the bay. Behind them, William could hear the other horses pounding in fierce pursuit.

  In one direction, he saw the golden sparks of several campfires. In another, the hills rose high and dark against the moonlit sky. Unwilling to risk the horses farther in the hills at night, he veered for the campfires. His cousins followed him down the slope.

  He glanced at the girl when they reached the base of the hill. "Hold tight," he said, and urged the bay forward.

  The horse had a powerful, long stride at full gallop. A cousin rode to either side of him, steel bonnets gleaming, lances and pistols at hand. The rhythm of the horses' hooves seemed to match the pace of his heart, seemed to stir, in that meter, his pride and his power.

  He felt exhilarated, his spirit heightened within him by the speed and the danger and knowledge of who he was, what he was. A reiver and a rogue, as his father had been, and his father before him, a long, uninterrupted line of Scotsmen who fought, in their way, for freedom of land, of heart and spirit, though they were called scoundrels for it rather than warriors.

  Jock drew even with him, a smile on his handsome face beneath the steel helmet, his long blond hair fanning out. Jock felt the same thrill, William realized. The reason for the pursuit—the theft of a few English cows, and a kiss stolen from an English girl—was forgotten in the heady risk of the chase.

  William turned and saw Sandie's face, lit by a bright grin. William knew that his stocky, red-bearded cousin took pride and delight in the knowledge that some English had been harried and aggravated that night.

  William smiled to himself as he rode onward. He felt the weight of the girl at his back, felt the press of her thighs to either side of his own. She was calm and bold, which pleased him. He was not surprised that Archie Armstrong's daughter took a fast chase over a dark moor in stride.

  Behind them, four Forsters and Arthur Musgrave were determined to apprehend them. Jock and Sandie had taken advantage of the moonlight to ride into England to visit with an English girl. Anna Forster was betrothed to Arthur Musgrave, according to the wishes of both fathers, but she and Jock had met and fallen in love a few months ago. William knew that Jock had been riding out to meet Anna secretly for quite a while.

  He had accompanied his cousins, planning to venture out in search of the
gypsy camp, since Sandie and Jock had said that they knew where it was. While Jock had met with Anna, Sandie had snatched a few Musgrave cows and had herded them onto Forster land for a prank. This, and Jock's clandestine meeting with Anna Forster, had brought a host of Forsters, and Arthur Musgrave as well, on their tails for the remainder of the night.

  William knew his own risk in this night's endeavor. If Arthur Musgrave recognized him, his arrangement with Jasper Musgrave would be jeopardized, and a feud started between them.

  He glanced back. Their pursuers had fallen behind. A line of trees edged the moor, and William veered toward those, slowing the bay to a canter. His cousins followed, and they made their way between thick birches, slowing under cover of the trees.

  William watched over his shoulder. Their pursuers might have lost the trail in the darkness, but he would make no assumptions. He urged the bay ahead, guiding him cautiously toward the other side of the wooded area.

  He turned to look at the girl, who gripped him hard around the waist. She lifted her head. "Who rides after you?" she asked.

  "English," he said. "Forsters. Arthur Musgrave."

  "Musgrave! Why would you run from him, or any English?" she asked in a bitter tone. "I'd think you would be eager to meet with them."

  "My comrades—my cousins—brought them on our tail, after a ride south to visit a certain English lass. As it happens, Arthur is her betrothed. He and her brothers gave chase."

  "Why are you part of this?" she asked. "When last I saw you, you were on your way to Rookhope." The false sweetness in her tone made him want to grind his teeth.

  "I would not be out here if you hadna run off," he said.

  "You didna need to go after me."

  "Indeed I did," he drawled. "Ho! Jock! Sandie! This way!" He waved to the others to follow.

  Sandie drew alongside of him. "Will, ask your gypsy if she belongs to that camp across the moor."

  "Gypsy?" William looked at Tamsin in mock surprise. "I thought we'd picked up a wildcat on the hill." She made a face at him, and he smiled full at her.